Book Review: R Cookbook by Paul Teetor

R Cookbook by Paul Teetor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A part of the cookbook series is expected to provide a multitude of examples of useful tasks. The R Cookbook does this, but also more. This provides more, teaching about R beyond what reference books and most tutorials.



One weakness of R compared to other data analysis environments and programming languages is it's lack of coherence that comes from a central design. Instead it seems like a set of constructs, each designed differently. As an example, the multiple packages for graphic. Every user of R soon picks up idioms from tutorials or trial and error. Book authors use their favorites. But the effect is that it is hard to know what you do not know. And one does not realize the realm of the possible.



The R Cookbook does this. In having multiple related recipes together what it provides are a number of closely related tasks, done in different ways. And using different idioms. And I have taken advantage of it, learning more ways of working with various data structures, the apply family of functions and other data transforms. This makes the R Cookbook even more valuable then the typical member of the O'Reilly Cookbook series. Well recommended.



I receive a free electronic of this book as part of the O'Reilly Blogger program.

More information on the book can be found at O'Reilly Press



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